WILDERNESS ROAD HOSPITALITY: EXPERIENCE THE UNEXPECTED
Unifying Brands and Sharing a Small Town Experience
It’s no secret that Jess and Angela Correll have made significant investments in the city of Stanford. In addition to making Stanford the headquarters for First Southern National Bank and UTG, the Corrells have brought restaurants, lodging, a spa, and a retail store to the town. While the bank and insurance companies have well-earned reputations, the hospitality businesses in Stanford were more of an unknown. Many locals weren’t even aware that these businesses were connected.
To better communicate the small-town hospitality experience that was now available in Stanford, Wilderness Road Hospitality was organized as an umbrella for the Bluebird, Mama DeVechio’s Pizzeria, Cerulean Catering, Esther’s Wellhouse, Kentucky Soaps & Such, and the Stanford Inn.
THE CHALLENGE
Establish a new umbrella brand and build awareness for several businesses at once.
Lack of Connection
Even for locals, seeing an obvious connection between the hospitality businesses in Stanford was a stretch. When the goal is to draw people from out of town to experience what these businesses offer, it becomes essential to simplify the math. Stanford’s main street had been largely abandoned before the Corrells created these businesses, so there were also 20+ years of a “dead town” reputation to address.
Stronger Together
Uniting the businesses under Wilderness Road Hospitality made it much easier to translate the shared experience for potential visitors. Even with that obstacle out of the way, selling visits to a small Kentucky town without natural draws isn’t easy. Most wouldn’t expect the services available in Stanford to be on par with many high end culinary and event spaces around the country. We decided to lean into this idea and went with “Experience the Unexpected” as the theme for our materials.
THE SOLUTIONS
With a unifying umbrella brand and tagline in place, the next step was to build consistency in messaging and materials and to make efficient use of advertising channels.
When awareness is the primary goal for your advertizing, success generally comes down to proper targeting and repetition. We had a fairly broad theme that conveyed a positive message while being flexible enough to apply to a variety of business expectations.
The Bluebird restaurant offered “Unexpected Flavors,” the Stanford Inn’s guest houses offered “Unexpected Charm,” and shoppers could find “Unexpected Wonders” at Kentucky Soaps & Such. The versatility of the campaign language made repetition and multiple applications easier.
As is often the case, we were asked to be very frugal in our spending, so digital advertising offered an efficient and traceable investment with the targeting capabilities we needed. Ads were run on Google, Meta, and YouTube in various combinations.
One of the great things about building a brand from the ground up is you have a clean slate. There’s no legacy website in place to accommodate or sunset and you are left to build an efficient tool for potential customers to learn more about the business.
In the case of Wilderness Road Hospitality, the website would serve primarily as a landing for those directed by advertising to learn more. The site would redirect visitors to existing websites for individual businesses for deep dives, so it made sense to keep it simple. Since Wilderness Road Hospitality was to be the parent company for these businesses, it also made sense for it to serve as the news and media hub for the businesses, as well as serving as a recruitment vehicle for employees.
The Wilderness Road Journal features diverse articles highlighting the businesses, personal stories, and community events. Sample posts include the story of FarmStrong Co., the introduction of a new massage therapist at Esther’s Wellhouse, authentic Italian cuisine crafted by Pizzaiolo Christian, and the regenerative agriculture techniques at Covey Chase Farm.
We created standard materials that you might expect in brochures, flyers, banners, and pens, but we were also allowed to design and commission a mural to serve as a focal point for visitors to take photos. Another unique piece was an illustrated map of the “campus” to further enforce the connected nature of the businesses beyond proximity and utility.
Mural designed for Downtown Stanford
In addition to collaborating on naming the hospitality group, we were also able to set some essential standards for Wilderness Road Hospitality and each of its individual businesses. Over time, this led to greater consistency in both internal and external communications.
THE RESULTS
By clarifying the connection between entities and efficient use of paid advertising we were able to grow awareness numbers across all online channels. Our efforts were particularly effective in generating a high ROI for Kentucky Soaps & Such via online retail sales.
SOURCED FROM META
SOURCED FROM GOOGLE ANALYTICS
